SubDomination - Change WP Categories to Subdomains

Sweetfunny · Dec 15, 2008

Here is a plugin for Wordpress, it allows you to turn your categories in to subdomains. For example:

domain.com/category/blackhat

Becomes:

blackhat.domain.com

As you know using subs can be a powerful strategy to target various keywords, and places like About.com make good use of subs and interlinking between them. This can replicate that, it can also save you money in keyword domains and setting up mini sites for new products. For instance if a new product comes out, lets say 'SubDomination' you just create a new category click 'add' and you have:

subdomination.domain.com

With this you can also use different templates for each category. Also your normal category menu automatically interlinks all your subs, and the lot is run from your normal WP admin panel.

Upload to your plugins folder and activate.

You will need Wildcard Subdomains activated on your hosting, either you host can do this or you can yourself if you have access.

Let me know if you have any problems and i'll help.

ultimatium1 · Dec 15, 2008

great plugin, I was going to look for somthing similar soon.
But wat I wanted to know was, Does this plugin replace all the old links? O rdo I need to do this manually by SQL?

Sweetfunny · Dec 15, 2008

ultimatium1 said:
great plugin, I was going to look for somthing similar soon.
But wat I wanted to know was, Does this plugin replace all the old links? O rdo I need to do this manually by SQL?

It's automatic, in the Add/Edit categories in WP Admin you have a simple check box to make category as subdomain or not as well as 'Select Theme' for category.

So you have full control over it, and you can make categories subs or not on a per category basis.

Best way is put it on a test blog or fresh install, and experiment with it before implementing it on an established/live blog.

albaniax · Dec 15, 2008

Sounds nice, but would it be good to make subdomains for the categories, for an old, average ranking blog?

Subdomains will be more or less like a new domain, or not? So I have to get some extra backlinks just for them..

And every new posting on the Blogs will be also published on the subdomains, right?

I think I will give this a try..

Sweetfunny · Dec 15, 2008

albaniax said:
Sounds nice, but would it be good to make subdomains for the categories, for an old, average ranking blog?

Subdomains will be more or less like a new domain, or not? So I have to get some extra backlinks just for them..

And every new posting on the Blogs will be also published on the subdomains, right?

I think I will give this a try..

Yes posts in categories will be published on the subs, so if you have a category blackhat.domain.com and publish a post in that category it will be:

blackhat.domain.com/hello-world/

Also i forgot to mention, for this set your permalinks to %postname% and don't use the default query string URL's because obviously the plugin can't extract a word for your sub from ?cat=12

As for using it on an established site, i'd suggest test it on a fresh install so you can see how it all works and can plan any conversions of established sites.

yoyas · Dec 15, 2008

This is gold friend. With these I will save a lot of time for sure.
God, I love this forum!!! :top:

rawasch · Dec 15, 2008

Hmm I can't activate the plugin.... it simply isn't visible in the Wordpress Plugins Tab. Tested on several blogs, am I missing something here? Thanks!

drumltd · Dec 15, 2008

I thought these days subdomains were devalued to directory status effectively in google etc. anyway?

Sweetfunny · Dec 15, 2008

rawasch said:
Hmm I can't activate the plugin.... it simply isn't visible in the Wordpress Plugins Tab. Tested on several blogs, am I missing something here? Thanks!

Did you upload it to this path, note it doesn't reside in a folder:

/wp-content/plugins/category-subdomains.php

Then in WP-Admin plugins tab it's called "Category Subdomains"

blackhaze · Dec 15, 2008

nice...agree...cool gem! I think i have wildcard subd on my reseller hosting, i always wanted to do some nifty stuff with it. this plugin has potential!!

rawasch · Dec 15, 2008

Yep I uploaded it in this path and it wasn't there. I've now downloaded another (?) version from what seems to be the developer site and this one worked. See here:

Code:

http://demp.se/y/2008/06/14/category-subdomains-043-works-with-tags/

Anyways... my new problem now is that I can't edit my httpd.conf on my shared hosting which seems to be necessary... Is there any workaround for that?

blackhaze · Dec 15, 2008

yep..contact your admin and ask them to edit it?

rawasch · Dec 15, 2008

Yeah thanks but I meant beside that .... a guy in the comments on the page I postet mentioned DNS aliases, anyone knows how to do it with that (he left that part out unfortunatelly

)

Tcm9669 · Dec 15, 2008

When you say wilcard subdomain do you mean we have to create *.ourdomain.com ?

And should we redirect that to the root of the blog?

Sweetfunny · Dec 15, 2008

Tcm9669 said:
When you say wilcard subdomain do you mean we have to create *.ourdomain.com ?

Yes, for an exact step by step on doing wildcard subdomains with pictures see step 6 on this:

Code:

http://www.blogopreneur.com/2006/11/06/installing-wordpress-mu-on-a-cpanelwhm-server/

dn0922 · Dec 16, 2008

The version attached isn't visible on WP 2.7 admin panel

The one in this link works though

rawasch said:
Yep I uploaded it in this path and it wasn't there. I've now downloaded another (?) version from what seems to be the developer site and this one worked. See here:

Code:

http://demp.se/y/2008/06/14/category-subdomains-043-works-with-tags/

Anyways... my new problem now is that I can't edit my httpd.conf on my shared hosting which seems to be necessary... Is there any workaround for that?

Thanks for the share:cow_yello

cooooookies · Dec 16, 2008

May I dare to ask: why doing that?

You safe a domain, you have the keyword at the beginning, ok. Is there more? Normally, a sub domain ranks with 0, or am I wrong?

Sweetfunny · Dec 16, 2008

cooooookies said:
May I dare to ask: why doing that?

You safe a domain, you have the keyword at the beginning, ok. Is there more? Normally, a sub domain ranks with 0, or am I wrong?

Subdomains are seen as different domains in many ways, for instance Google "HP Server" and hp.com basically owns the whole front page through use of subdomains.. You can't do that with pages.

Also domains get authority, by getting links to the subs you build authority to the domain in general. For example Digg, Mixx, Squidoo etc if you make a page on there they will jump high in the SERP's with no backlinks because of domain authority.

Another reason is rapid deployment of sites to promote offers, instead of regging a new keyword domain then setting up a site from scratch you just login to WP and create a sub and write the content. A good WP landing page is this one by emgxxg. Then all the marketing work done on your previous subs flows to your new sub, because it's auto linked by the category menu. So no need to run around getting links to get your new domain indexed.

Believe me, when you have a hundred domains with landing pages promoting all sorts of shit you will appreciate having one WP admin panel to manage everything and being able to push out keyword subs ready to roll at the click of a button.

FleshJoe · Dec 16, 2008

Very clear explanation of the benefits, thanks, SweetFunny.

Also, it seems that the development by the Dempsey guy has stalled. Someone else has picked up the work and is continuing development here:

Code:

http://webdev.casualgenius.com/projects/category-subdomains/

LOL, he's using the plugin to categorize his work into a sub-domain

cooooookies · Dec 16, 2008

Thanks, sweetfunny, very useful post.

Is it also possible to use that on WPMU? Especially when using the donncha-domain-mapping-plugin?

mainsite
a.mainsite => mydomaina.info
b.mainsite => mydomainb.info

and then
category1.mydomaina.info
...

SubDomination - Change WP Categories to Subdomains

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